


next

by charcoalsuns



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 19:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalsuns/pseuds/charcoalsuns
Summary: Matsukawa breaks up with Hanamaki on a Tuesday.(or, a scene of an aftermath of a period of fake dating)





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Matsukawa breaks up with Hanamaki on a Tuesday. 

The sky looms above them as they walk, restless rumbles advancing from miles away. Beyond every awning and overhang, the pavement’s already damp. 

Hanamaki’s face is turning red in patches, the way it does when he’s about to cry, not from anything like despair, but from frustration or embarrassment or some combination of the two, and Matsukawa, heart thumping in his ears, can’t seem to smile the way he always has at the sight. 

“So,” Hanamaki says, too quiet, too unsure. He looks down, rubs at his nose. “Where do you want to go now?” 

Matsukawa tears his eyes from the strange, timid space between them. His own uncertain ground keeps his fingers curling stiffly at his side. 

“The,” he starts, and stops. “The usual?” 

When Hanamaki smiles at him, it's like nothing has changed. 

     
     
      
      
      
       
Even through the cloud cover, the sun feels like a spotlight, focusing in turns on Hanamaki’s shoulder and still-pink cheeks and the grip of his hand around his sweating water bottle. 

Matsukawa swallows his own drink down, wipes away the droplets left on his lips. He wonders where their ease has gone. 

Or, not their ease, because that’s still here, settled around them like the drowsy afternoon, like their feet side by side on the pavement, like their jackets, folded loosely and draped over the back of the bench. He wonders instead when their silence became so charged, and why it suddenly feels like the prelude to thunder every time he notices the rise and fall of Hanamaki’s chest as he breathes. 

He wonders where his own ease has gone, if that’s the kind of thing he’s noticing now. 

With a sigh, Hanamaki nudges him in the side. It takes a bit of concentration to keep his posture relaxed. “You’re thinking awfully loudly,” he says, just as quietly. “What’s up?” 

“Looks like rain,” is the first of Matsukawa’s balled-up thoughts to unwind into actual words. The second, “Why is there space between us now,” isn’t much better. 

Hanamaki stills where his fingers had been twisting his bottle cap back and forth. “There usually is,” he says carefully, and it’s the unusual hesitation, the tiptoeing where he has always stepped surely forth, that stirs Matsukawa into confidence himself. 

“I was just thinking, I mean, didn’t it feel like there was… less? When we were pretending.” 

A bundle of creases forms between Hanamaki’s eyebrows as he thinks it over. “Maybe it was just that,” he says, starting to fidget again. His thumb leaves a clear trail through the fog on his water bottle, before it condenses again. “Less space, maybe, and more putting our feelings to the side, because we were pretending.” 

 _Yes. Exactly that._ Something lifts in Matsukawa’s chest to hear that they are even now, despite their mild displacement, still on the same page. His laugh comes out overrun with relief, more an exhale than an exclamation, and he stretches his legs out in front of him, leans back against their overlapping jackets. 

Hanamaki lets out another sigh; lets himself relax, too. “It feels like everything we do has this new weight to it, you know?” 

Matsukawa nods. “Because we’re acknowledging it now.” He turns his head, just enough to glance to his side. He meets Hanamaki’s eyes as he always has, and finds the wordless agreement he has grown to look forward to; not to expect, not just yet, but to wonder at, to carry forward, and to entwine with his own resolve in turn. It’s been two and a half years. It’s been a little over a week. It’s a little less daunting, to know that all of _it_ – the faith, the fun, the frantic realignment of their time spent beside one another – is mutual. 

They don’t acknowledge much of anything else for the rest of the afternoon, but it builds between them as the clouds pile up overhead, as they detour to the recycling bin to toss their empty bottles away. 

Matsukawa takes in a breath. His heart seems to migrate into his arm when he sticks it right behind Hanamaki’s, close enough and sudden enough that their wrists crash together with a small _thud_. 

“Wh—” Hanamaki jumps, surprise blotching red across his face. They both stop walking. There’s one step between them, not even a full step, yet the backs of Matsukawa’s wrist and neck are tingling, frozen warm, and that slight distance is still further than he can bring himself to cross once more. 

But luckily, as _he_ always has, Hanamaki meets him halfway. 

Matsukawa watches as he blinks his eyes shut, as a smile flickers at his lips and quietly explodes into a snort of a laugh, as he says, “This is _ridiculous_ ,” and reaches over to grasp Matsukawa’s hand. 

Then, “Listen, Matsukawa. This—” he brandishes the hand in his, shoving it in Matsukawa’s face like a winning popsicle stick, “—is how I feel, so. It’s fine, right? Whatever we do from here, wherever we’re going – all this time, we haven’t ever backed down from a challenge, so there’s no need to start now.” 

Matsukawa opens his mouth on reflex, not quite knowing what he wants to say. He takes in Hanamaki’s nonplussed declaration, how for all his composure, he looks as flushed as if he’d just run up and down the block twenty times, and he can’t help the look he can feel spreading across his own face in response. It’s a terribly fond look, he knows it. And what he says to match it is, “Literally just ten minutes ago, I said we’d be able to make it across the street before the light changed, and you said we’d better wait for the next one, so—” 

He gets cut off when Hanamaki does an about face, yanking Matsukawa’s arm along as he continues to walk. “Shut it, just, shut,” he tries to snap, but he’s laughing, and so is Matsukawa, and the novel idea of _maybe we don’t have to make this harder than it is_ seems to ascend around them like a rainstorm in reverse.

“Hanamaki,” he says, heart beating steady in his chest, where it should be, “I can’t move my fingers.” 

Hanamaki stares at him for a moment, then elbows him none too gently, letting his grip go slack. “You ass,” he says, and his grin is back to all its daring, uneven glory. He leaves his arm stuck out a little, waiting. “See if I’m going to try and hold hands with you again.” 

“Sure thing,” Matsukawa tells him, already reaching back. 

It takes a few more seconds of shuffling for them to find a less awkward overlap, and they don't really manage it, but all the same, the restlessness that had been sparking through Matsukawa’s limbs all week feels like it’s gathered up onto the surface of his skin and dissipated into nothing, into the grand scheme of all things. It hasn’t rained on them yet, not for lack of warning. But he looks over at Hanamaki, remembers the reasons they'd wanted to call off the dance and learn instead to walk together, for real, and is met with a familiar nod toward a _next time_ that means _this time_ in answer. 

“I feel like this, too,” Matsukawa says, nudging their fingers closer, his arm leaning comfortably into Hanamaki’s. And that, for right now, is everything.   
    

       
      

**Author's Note:**

> i'm... not quite sure where this premise struck me from, but, well, here it is •_•  
> why were they fake dating in the first place? it is a ~mystery,, by which i mean i did not think that far,
> 
> thank you for reading!


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